Darkness Within Walls
by Ramzes
Summary: With Viserys II's untimely death, the dark walls will be pressing against Daenaera Velaryon and the Seven Kingdoms once again. Part 9 of my Daenaera Velaryon series.


**Darkness Within Walls**

Sometimes, she felt that all she had been doing those last years had been standing at deathbeds. Baela's. Baelor's. And now, Viserys'.

Maybe it wasn't a deathbed after all. She had last seen him only a month ago and he had been in rude health, as he usually was. Maybe she was silly to leave everything and rush from Driftmark, and into the season of storms as well.

It had been a single mark that had spurred her into this instant decision. A small ripple blotching the ink ever so slightly. Something the author would never have tolerated, had she been able to prevent it from happening into one of the copies. Naerys had wept writing the letter.

Since she had come not with a royal ship but a smaller one bearing the sigil of House Velaryon and not the dragons, her arrival went unnoticed in the port. She had covered her silver hair, now streaked with white, her Kingsguard wore a simple blue cloak and no one paid them any attention until she revealed her face at the gates of the Red Keep to demand entrance.

The usual buzz in the castle was so muted that Daenaera gave up on any plans of going to her chambers and washing before heading for the Maegor's Holdfast. The day was bright, the sun warm and once again, it felt unreal that the Stranger might have come for Viserys. If he had to take someone, surely she'd be a better choice? She had been unable to prevent her sons' follies; she could only watch helplessly as her daughters were now making decisions that would ruin their lives, for they, too, would not heed her. Why should she be spared and he taken? It made no sense.

_Life doesn't make sense_, Aegon's voice echoed in her head.

_Go away, Aegon_, she thought. _Please go away. You don't want him to die, do you? Don't come near, for you belong to the Stranger now. More than you ever did to me!_

_I wish it wasn't so_, he sighed.

"So do I!"

The knight gave her a peculiar look. She really had to stop these conversations she'd been having with Aegon for the last few years because she had started answering him aloud… With Baelor's madness and her daughters' peculiarities, it was not particularly trust-inspiring. On the other hand, what did it matter? Her blood would never sit the Iron Throne again. The men who wanted to wed her daughters would have wanted them even if they were lame and yellow-teethed. It truly didn't matter.

The silence in Maegor's Holdfast stopped her dead in her tracks and she didn't know why. It was not as if the place was a merry one usually. But as she walked to the royal chambers, the fortress pressed her hard.

She expected to see Aemon in front of his father's bedchamber and when she recognized Ser Lors Marbrand, relief washed over her. Clearly, Viserys had gotten better. Aemon would never have left his post otherwise.

The empty antechamber didn't surprise her. Like Aegon, Viserys misliked having too many servants around and scandalized courts by usually attending to his own basic needs. Nothing was this urgent as to warrant servants being constantly in the same chamber. She knocked on the door, waited for answer and after a soft admittance that might have been a figment of her own imagination entered the bedchamber.

Viserys sat into a high-backed chair with sturdy arms that provided some support for his body – and by his posture, he really needed it. Daenaera was immediately stricken at how pale, wan and aged he looked. The skin of the hand resting on the arm of the chair was as taut and shiny as the skin of a drum. Hazy eyes squinted at her into the darkness enveloping the room in broad daylight. "Rhaena? Is that you?"

_He doesn't care that I came_, Daenaera thought bitterly. _He doesn't need me. No one cares where I am._ Well, that was not true. Her girls preferred that she was far away, usually.

"It isn't Rhaena," she said, coming near. "It's me. Daenaera."

"What are you doing here?"

His voice was rasping, confused but no less authoritative.

"This is the season of storms! Why have you traveled? Are you _mad_?"

Despite everything, Daenaera smiled a little. "That's rich. I have suffered whatnot in my childhood and youth just to be insulted by a king in my dotage."

He snorted, or at least tried to, the attempt ending in painful efforts to catch his breath.

"Here, Father. Drink this."

Aemon appeared from the shadows, placed a cup into his father's palm and gently closed the swollen fingers around it.

Swollen fingers. Rheumy eyes. Daenaera was scared what she would find should she come close but coming close she did.

"Why are you here?" Viserys asked.

Her answer was just a moment late. Viserys turned in his chair despite the discomfort the movement cost him, and glared at his son. "You! Who summoned her? Was it you or Naerys? Or was Daeron the one who was blessed with this idiotic idea?"

Aemon pretended that he hadn't heard.

"Answer me! She could have _died_!"

Fortunately, Aemon was spared by the necessity to answer because Viserys' mind, probably the only part of him almost unaffected by this sudden illness, turned to another concern that made his filmy eyes widen. "Rhaena! Did you think of scaring her into coming here as well? All the way from _Oldtown_?"

He looked so terrified that Daenaera wanted to weep. He desperately wished to see Rhaena – she knew it. He was aware that he was dying – she knew that, too. And as usual, he placed those he cared for before himself.

The man who would soon sit his throne would never do such a thing.

Aemon looked down.

Viserys groaned with despair and pain. "Write to her," he ordered. "Right now! Order her in my name to stay there… no, she won't listen to me. When she thinks it's important , she turns into a veritable mule. Tell her that I'm getting better. Tell her whatever you want – but make sure that she stays where she is."

His irritation rose to a feverish pitch and Daenaera realized that his mind was not as unaffected as she had thought. Tears sprang to her eyes at the thought of him losing something that he took such a pride at, tears that he could not see because of his failing eyesight.

Aemon poured another goblet of warm wine and placed it to his father's lips because it now seemed that Viserys could not hold it. He could not hold even his own head up. What was this illness, so sudden and so acute? Daenaera didn't want to think of the possibility that sprang to her mind at once, as much as out of fear that she might be right as out of fear that he might guess what she had in her mind. That was the last thing he needed right now, no matter whether he'd die or not. If he was about to recover, this suggestion might slow the process down considerably.

_He's coming to me_, Aegon said, without sadness but without joy either.

_He is_, she confirmed. Soon, I'll be the only one left. _I – and Rhaena at Oldtown._

_Don't worry_, he reassured her. _I'll be here. I'll wait for you as long as it takes._

_I hope it's soon._ Why should she stay? No one needed her.

At the middle of the goblet, Viserys went to sleep. Just like that. Aemon lifted him, very gently, and carried him to the bed. His eyes, wide and desperate, met hers. She reached over and touched his cheek. He leaned into the touch, eagerly. He had never been close to his father – _I have no right to demand of my children to do anything for me_, Viserys had once said, _for they have received too little _– but he had always been awed by Viserys' ability to keep the kingdom together. To him, his father was a symbol of peace and prosperity, security that had never been meant to go away.

To her, Viserys had been a lifelong friend and companion. Someone who had always helped her. The man who had preserved the kingdom from her sons' follies. The king who had released her daughters in the very day he gained the throne. To Daenaera, he had been a promise of new life, a chance to make peace with her girls and everything they had lost. The good of the kingdom. The light after the long night of Baelor's misguided faith.

Now, the dark walls were pressing against them on all sides.


End file.
